Our take
Pick Redpanda if streaming teams who will start Serverless on the $100 (AWS trial) or $300 (Marketplace) credit, then stay on pay-as-you-go after credits when they need a production Kafka API without running brokers themselves — or self-host the engine for $0 license on the binary. Pick RisingWave if streaming teams who will burn the 7-day Cloud trial (no setup), then pay $0.227 per RWU-hour on Basic — or stay on
Kafka-compatible streaming desk
streaming SQL database
Best for
Redpanda Topics you start on $100 / $300 credits
RisingWave Always-on SQL views you start with a 7-day Cloud trial or Apache 2.0 on your metal
Free plan
Redpanda $0 · redpanda engine on your machines (GitHub). Cloud Console still bills Cloud
RisingWave No free plan
Lowest paid
Redpanda AWS / Google Cloud Marketplace $300
RisingWave Not published by the vendor
Runs where
Redpanda Local; you host it
RisingWave Hosted
Watch out
Redpanda Credits are not a $0 forever card
RisingWave Cloud Basic is a 7-day trial, then RWU-hours
Last checked
Redpanda 2026-10-23 · docs.redpanda.com/redpanda-cloud/get-started/cluster-types
RisingWave 2026-10-22 · risingwave.com/pricing
streaming teams who will start Serverless on the $100 (AWS trial) or $300 (Marketplace) credit, then stay on pay-as-you-go after credits when they need a production Kafka API without running brokers themselves — or self-host the engine for $0 license on the binary.
Read the Redpanda pagestreaming teams who will burn the 7-day Cloud trial (no setup), then pay $0.227 per RWU-hour on Basic — or stay on Apache 2.0 self-managed when they will operate Kubernetes themselves.
Read the RisingWave page